Once Upon a Window
by silverhorizon
Summary: Angel Grant is an actress with no luck. When she finally scores a role in a movie called Secret Window, she is overjoyed. Until she realizes the catch. She has to spend time with a psycho.
1. Meet Angel

A/N sorry this first chapter is a little.... strange. I'm just trying to set things up before it gets interesting. tell me what you think, okay mates? hugs!

Angel sat straight up in her bed when she heard the phone ring, banging her head against the headboard. She rubbed her forehead and glanced at the headboard, noticing that another piece of paint had fallen off. Headboards can only take so much abuse. After many phone calls in the middle of the night, the paint sometimes might start to deteriorate. It happens.  


She was brought away from thoughts about her headboard by the phone's ringing, which had not yet stopped. It was almost finished with the fourth ring when she picked it up and said "Hello?"  


"Angel?" A man's voice came over from the other end of the phone.  


Angel sighed and leaned against her headboard. "Dammit Mark, what now? Did you run out of coffee again? Need me to pick some up on my way over?"  


"No, no, I have plenty of coffee."  


"Then what?"  


"I think I found you a role."  


Angel leaned forward, thinking. "I'll be there in ten minutes." She glanced up and stared at her self in the yellowish mirror across the room. She looked like crap. "Make that thirty." 

She hung up the phone without waiting for a reply, and then pulled herself out of her bed, immediately stubbing her toe on the rough carpet. "Damn carpet," Angel muttered. "Needs to be replaced." She automatically glanced at her expensive, out-of- place black leather purse (what was going through her head when she bought it?) on the other end of the little room, hanging on the doorknob. It was a reflex glance, because she already knew exactly what was inside that purse. Nothing.  


Walking to the sink of the bathroom that was connected to her room, she glared at herself in the other mirror, one that was slightly less yellow, although there was a rather long crack stretching across the bottom edge.  


"Crappy apartment," Angel continued to mutter to herself. "Gotta get out of this shit hole."  
  
"I got here as soon as I could." Angel said to her agent/boyfriend, Mark Capell. 

"Angel! You said thirty minutes! It's been nearly two hours." 

"You didn't expect me to show up looking like I just rolled out of bed, did you?" 

"Angel." Mark gaped at her. "You do look like you just rolled out of bed." 

"I know." She said, exasperated. "That's the point. Only this way, it's controlled. I'm wearing make-up and I did my hair." 

Mark squinted. "You are?" 

"Shut up!" Angel said. "Just tell me what you've got for me." 

Mark sighed. "Okay. So, the movie came from a book originally. The author, some crazy psycho living in a backwoods little hut or something, people say he killed somebody. Nobody wants to play a role in this movie, but it sounds like a good one and people will love it. It's perfect for you." Angel looked at him suspiciously. 

"I want a copy of the script." Mark hopped from one foot to the other like an excited child. 

"Are you taking the role? You're gonna be a star, Angie, I can feel it." 

"Angel, not Angie. I might take it. Might. Why does nobody want it?" 

"Uh... the company that's making the movie want's the actors to spend time with the writer, just so they can get a feel for how their character is supposed to be." 

"So I have to spend time with some psycho just to get a role?" 

"Please do it, darling. It's time for your big break." 

"Sure." Angel shrugged. "Are we doing anything tonight?" 

Mark looked at her nervously. "Actually, if you're going to take the role, you're supposed to start right away." She searched his face for a moment. 

"You really want me to do this?" He grinned at her. 

"You deserve to be a star. And, you need to get out for a little while." 

"Okay. But I'm taking my cell. I'll call you." She gave him a quick kiss on the lips and then said, "So where exactly does this guy live? Oh, and will you tell my boss at the restaurant that I'll be away for a little while? Oh, wait, screw that, just tell him that I quit." 

"Sure, sure, now get moving." Mark pressed a piece of paper in her hand. "Just go to that address, and I'll call the director and tell him you accept the part." 

"Just like that? I don't have to audition?" 

"They're desperate for somebody to play the part. Now go, go!" He kissed her quickly and she hurried out of the building, a little run down apartment on the first floor of a complex, which Mark had turned into his little office. Mark was a salesperson at a department store, but he had connections that he used to get people into Hollywood.

  
  
Angel put a new stick of winterfresh gum in her mouth and glared hatefully at the rain that was streaking the window of her car. One of her window wipers was broken, unfortunately, and it had been that way for at least six months, which was unfortunate seeing as how she out of luck whenever it started to rain and she needed to get somewhere. Like now.  


She pulled out her cell and dialed Mark's number.  


It rang. Eight times. Why didn't he answer? "C'mon asshole I know you're there, pick up the phone." She grumbled to herself.  


She turned the phone off and tried calling again. Still no answer. Why was he being Mr. Mysterious all of a sudden? She would kill him if this movie thing turned out to be a joke. She had been waiting to get a role or a call for an audition for months, with no luck.  


Sighing, she started the car and watched as the window wipers proceeded to wipe the driver's side of the windshield. It was barely enough to see the road, but she was fairly convinced she could still drive, as long as nobody set out to ram into her.  


She inched the battered blue Toyota (five years old) into the road and started slowly driving down the wet pavement. Hoping nobody would come along. After all, she wasn't on a road that seemed to get a lot of drivers coming along, so maybe she could get by without actually driving close to anyone. She started to feel better.  


She inspected the scrap of paper Mark had given her with this writer guy's address. Below it was written a phone number, and his name. Mort Rainey.  


Ugh. Terrible name. Mort Rainey? Who would name their kid Mort? She picked her cell back up, (seeing as how it took very little energy to control her car while it was going at about 5 mph) and dialed the number on the paper. She hoped it wouldn't be too late to call him, (it had taken most of the day to drive down here) but she didn't want to be showing up at the guy's house at midnight without offering at least some explanation.  


However, she wasn't able to give an explanation. The phone rang, but nobody picked it up. "Hmm." She said to herself, snapping the cell shut and flicking the switch to turn off the radio. For some reason it just felt too quiet in the car.  


She turned the volume up on the radio, but all she could hear was the fuzzy noise of no radio signal.  


Damn, she thought to herself. 


	2. Mort & Joey

A/N first of all, the disclaimer: Angel is mine, Joey is mine, but everything else? Isn't.  
  
Second, I've only seen Secret Window once (I know, I know... I begged and begged but forgot that it went out of theatres so quickly!) And I'm SURE that I made some mistakes in this chapter, and I couldn't find the script anywhere. Corrections?  
  
Angel stared at the rickety little cabin sitting in front of her car. It looked as if it was about to fall apart at any second. The paint was chipping, and the blinds were torn and strewn about the windows. Well, at least it looked spacious.  
"Welcome to Tashmore Lake, Angel." She muttered to herself. "Home of the psycho's."  
She pulled the handle on the inside of her car, and it snapped off in her hand.  
"Shit!" She swore, staring at the handle sitting in her hand, like it was mocking her. She slid over to the passenger door and opened it, getting out of the car. "Stupid old car... totally worthless."  
She walked around to the driver's side door and looked at it from the outside. It looked normal... there was nothing wrong. So what had happened?  
  
She stared back at the cabin and frowned. "So I guess this is it then?" She imagined what the newspaper stories would say; 'LOCAL ACTRESS MURDERED BY WRITER' and the article could say 'In a frantic hurry to drive away, Angel was killed because she could not open the door to her car.'  
Angel took a deep breath and summoned all the courage she could find, until finally she walked up the steps and through the screen door to knock on the door to the cabin.  
There was no answer. And the doorbell was broken. She knocked again, more persistently. What would she do if there was nobody there?  
She knocked again, and when there was still no answer, she turned and looked at her car, frowning and trying to think of something to do.  
She knocked again and then she turned the handle to the door, ignoring the little voice in her head telling her that it was not a good idea to break into the home of murderers.  
The door swung open, unlocked.  
"Hello?" She called uneasily.  
She took a few hesitant steps inside, only to find that there was a disheveled looking man sitting on a couch, smoking and typing furiously on a shiny silver laptop. He had blonde streaked hair and a ragged pinstriped backrobe made with clashing colors. He was wearing glasses, and they were falling down on his face, but he appeared not to notice anything except for the laptop sitting on his lap.  
For a moment, Angel just stared. Then, he sat back and stared at the laptop for a while, not typing, just... staring. He smoked for a while longer, and Angel just watched, unsure of what she should say in this situation.  
"Uh... excuse me?" She said finally. He looked up, and then jumped, startled.  
"Why didn't you answer the door?" She asked.  
"I- I'm sorry? Who are you?" The man asked, standing up and looking very confused.  
"Oh, uh..." Angel stuck her hand out, "I'm Angel Grant, I'm the actress who's acting in the movie being made from your book."  
"You are?" The man said. "That's nice."  
Angel waited. The man didn't say anything.  
"Are you Mort Rainey?" She asked finally, realizing he wasn't going to say anything else.  
"Er, yeah, yes I am." His eyes shifted slowly back to his laptop, and then to her.  
Angel caught the hint. "I take it you're sort of busy." She asked. He didn't say anything. "Well, my agent told me I was supposed to spend a while with you to sort of get a feel for my character... Amy, right?"  
"Yeah," Mort said distantly. "You look like her."  
"Excuse me?" Angel asked. "She's a real person? Wasn't she murdered in the story?"  
"No, she's not real," Mort said quickly. "Just... you look like how I imagined her." He finished.  
"Oh," Angel said, and there was more silence.  
"It's sort of late," She said nervously.  
"Is it?" Mort asked, looking outside. "Well, I guess you can sleep upstairs in my room for today, and there's some food in the kitchen if you're hungry or anything." His attention turned back to the computer.  
"Oh..." Angel said. "Um... alright." She hung her purse on the rack next to the door, then changed her mind and took it upstairs with her, just in case.  
"Want a smoke?" She heard Mort call from downstairs.  
"No thanks." She called back. She hadn't had any drugs since she had to go into rehab when she was thirteen.  
She went upstairs into the room that Mort had pointed out, and it was dark in there. She flipped the light switch and dropped her purse on the bed, instantly digging through it for her cell phone.  
She quickly dialed Mark's number, (she knew it by heart already) and waited for him to pick up.  
"Hello?" She heard his voice and breathed a deep sigh of relief.  
"Mark?"  
"Angel? What happened, why are you calling?"  
"What do you mean?" Angel asked, looking at the bed she was supposed to sleep on tonight. She wondered if it would be possible that she could find a change of sheets. "You're my boyfriend, and my agent, Mark, and suddenly I'm not allowed to call?"  
Mark was silent for a moment. "You didn't just call to chat with me, Angel, what is wrong?"  
Angel sat down on the bed and sighed. "I don't know, Mark, it's creepy, being out here; This guy really is a psycho."

She heard Mark sigh on the other end, and then say, "Well, I don't know what to tell you, Angel. It's a little late to be backing out now."

"Alright Mark." Angel said, running a hand through her hair. "Talk to you later, then."

"Bye." Angel pressed 'end' on her cell phone and then lay back on the bed with a definite uneasy feeling. Mark didn't seem to be himself lately, but there was nothing she could do except just let things happen. She sighed and closed her eyes for a minute, when she herd a noise at the door and sat up straight. There was a man standing in the doorway, and he wasn't the man she had seen before on the couch. "Who are you?" She asked.  
"Hey, don't be scared, baby, be cool. Names Joseph Hockler, but you, darling, can call me Joey. I'm the actor who's going to play George... you know, in the movie."  
"The murderer, eh?" Angel said, smiling and relaxing. Joey seemed perfectly nice, and she was glad that she wasn't alone in this.  
"That dude down there's pretty creepy, eh? Doesn't know how to chill. Been writing all day, ever since I got here."  
"Really?" Angel asked, amazed.  
"Yeah, yeah. You better believe it, baby. And he has corn by the bucketload in the kitchen. I mean, there's other stuff too, but mostly just corn."  
"Wow." Angel said.  
"Yeah. Maybe he's a corn vampire or something. By the way, I don't believe you've introduced yourself." He flashed her an award-winning grin. "What you already know is that my name is Joey. Now yours is...?"  
"Grant. Angel Grant." She said in a James Bond-like way. Joey smiled and so did Angel, but inside of her somewhere she was thinking that he was a little strange as well.


	3. I'm bein good!

"You sleeping here, babe?" Joey asked, gesturing to the bed.  
"Yes." Angel said, turning away from him to study the room. There was a mirror across from the bed, just like the one in Angel's apartment... well... in what used to be her apartment. She had already made up her mind to move out of that apartment. Maybe she could move in with Mark. She hadn't seen his apartment yet... usually, they would... well... hang out at her apartment.  
She walked into the bathroom and flipped the switch, having a quick flashback to the handle on her car that had snapped off in her hand. The light didn't turn on, and the glass on the shower door was broken. Great. Now she knew that nobody in this house was going to be taking a shower for awhile. She wrinkled her nose at the bacteria growing alongside the toilet and in the cracks of the walls.  
"Yet another shitty place for Angel to stay in! Oh joy!" She said with sarcastic enthusiasm. She could hear Joey laughing in the other room. He had one of those weird laughs, an excited hyena sound.  
She walked out of the bathroom and stared at him.  
"Are you still here?" She asked him, just the slightest bit irritated.  
"Well yeah, baby. This is where I'm sleeping." He said with a annoying smile. She glared at him.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Well, darling, there's only one bed. Corn vampire is gonna sleep on the couch and the other dude is taking the armchair, so I was going to sleep on the bed. Since you're here, I guess we'll both be sleeping here."  
  
He was grinning the biggest, cockiest grin she had ever seen, and she wanted to smack him. She walked over to the bed and stretched right across the middle of it and smiled at him.  
"I don't think so."  
She tossed a pillow at him and pointed at the floor.  
He didn't argue. "I figured you'd say that, but hey, babe, it was worth a shot." He tossed the pillow onto the carpet and went to the closet.  
"I think I saw a blanket in here somewhere..." He muttered to himself.  
  
Angel remained silent for awhile. "Joey?" She asked finally.  
"Hmmm?" He replied, pulling out a blanket that had a sick yellow color, pastel but sort of dirty from years of sitting in the closet.  
"You said there was another man here?" She asked.  
"I did?" Joey said, stopping for a minute. "Oh yeah, the dude on the armchair. He's playing the part of... what's his name? The other guy?" Joey snapped his fingers a couple times while he thought furiously. "I know it, I know it... well, I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later."  
"What do you mean?"  
"Well, the guys been talking about his part all day... he filched a copy of the script and he's been quoting from it and trying to get me to help him with his lines and stuff... the dude really needs to chill before he turns out like corn vampire."  
Angel sat up in the bed and quickly jumped off it, stubbing her toe just like the last time she had crawled out of bed, only this time it was on the bed frame.  
I'm going to meet him." She said to Joey, even though she knew that she didn't have to explain her every move to him.  
"Alright, baby, but be careful cos he's a little touchy."  
  
Angel walked back down the stairs and heard a familiar tapping coming from the couch. She knew without looking that Mort was still writing away on his computer.  
"Um, hey." She said, waiting for him to look up. He didn't. She hoped he was listening. "I totally forgot to bring any clothes or anything so I'm gonna need to drive back to my place and get my stuff." Angel said.  
  
"No, you don't need to do that. The other guys are just gonna use my stuff." He said, startling her. She didn't think he had been paying attention.  
"Ummm..." Angel thought for a moment. "But... I'm not a guy, so how can I use your stuff if..."  
"My wife has some stuff here that you can use."  
"Your wife? You're married?"  
"Was." Mort said, turning away from the computer to face her. "Hey, listen... are you hungry at all? I think it's time for me to take a break."  
  
"Uh... actually, just a little bit." Angel said as he stood up and walked into what she supposed was the kitchen. She followed him.  
He opened the fridge and ignored the large piles of corn, pulling a box out from behind them. He held it up for Angel to see. It was a box of Hot Pockets, pizza flavored. "You want one?" He asked her, and she nodded.  
He put two into the microwave and then she leaned against the counter, searching for something to fill the silence besides the buzzing of the microwave.  
"So rumor has it you killed some people."  
"Three." Mort said.  
"I'm sorry?" Angel asked, sure she had misheard. Mort seemed to realize he had said something wrong.  
"I mean, that's what people are saying; three people went missing, and I was blamed for their murder."  
"So didja do it?" Angel asked, grinning. Mort did not smile.  
"No."  
"Oh." Angel searched for another topic, because the one she picked did not seem to be snagging any goodwill.  
"So uh... what's with all the corn?"  
"I grow it."  
"Oh."  
Another silence.  
"What's your book about?"  
"What book?"  
"The one you're writing right now, on the computer." She gestured toward the laptop.  
"Oh, uh... just... you know, stuff."  
"Stuff." Angel said skeptically.  
"Well, I don't really know yet." Mort said. Just then they both heard a long drawn out beeping noise, and Mort popped the microwave open and pulled out the Hot Pockets. He handed her one and then walked back out into the living room and sat back down at his laptop, hesitating for a moment, and then typing in between bites. As if he forgot Angel even existed.  
Angel looked around, and then walked into another room where a messy looking man was lying, mouth open, on an easy chair, fast asleep. She decided now was probably not the best time to meet him, and headed back upstairs where Joey was lying on the floor reading a magazine. Apparently he had brought it with him, because it was not the kind of magazine she suspected Mort would have just... laying around. When she walked in, Joey tossed the magazine under the bed and quickly turned toward her and smiled.  
  
"Whatcha doing?" She asked, lying down on the bed and propping her head up on her elbows, setting the plate with the Hot Pocket down on the bedspread.  
"Reading a magazine." Joey said brightly.  
"Oh." Angel said with the same brightness. She pulled the magazine out from under the bed. "Playboy." She read off the cover. She looked back up at Joey and he gave her a sheepish grin.  
"No masturbating in this room." She told him. "If you're going to do that, go downstairs and you three guys can have one big masturbation party.  
Realizing that that could be taken in a very nasty way, she slipped under the bed covers and pulled them ever her head. "Nite."   
  
Angel woke up in the middle of the night to and she didn't know why. She lay in bed for just another moment before she heard a page turn.  
"Joey!" She yelled. "Put the magazine away!" She heard a rustling of papers and then heard the magazine being slid back under her bed. "Joey..."  
"I'm bein good!" He cried. 


End file.
